


A Lesson in Stratarchy

by DocHolliday



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
Genre: Allusions to other transformers media, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And more allusions to Prime, Because rid2015 is a direct sequel, Canon Rewrite, Hopefully its a little better than canon, Sideswipe is a little shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 15:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13720839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DocHolliday/pseuds/DocHolliday
Summary: I think that the majority of Transformers fans think that Rid2015 was not what we were hoping for. So, I decided to try rewriting it with my sub-par writing skills!





	A Lesson in Stratarchy

  


It was amazing how far cybertron had progressed in such a short amount of time, despite all its shortcomings. It baffled me almost everyday-orn. Everyorn. It baffled me every _orn_ that it only took almost two years- _two fragging Meta-cycles_ \- to make Cybertron seem almost alive again. Like it was once before. Granted, it was only in Iacon, now named New Iacon, and all the other cities were still piles of scrap with scraplet infestations, but hey, small miracles.

 

“We have a 2-1-1 in progress” The station officer said in his deadbeat voice through the coms, once again filling my poor spark with nothing but the utter joy of silence as the station officer’s voice stopped producing audio through the channel. The coordinates were transferred to my HUD. Still glad that despite the fact that they wanted me to change my altmode to one of that more recognisable to one of that a street cop, like that poor newspark Strongarm, and I kept the more sleek and powerful finesse of a high powered sports car, I gunned my engine towards the coordinates.

 

The aforementioned newspark named Strongarm followed. Even when it seemed like the I was jumping to my death off the railing - highly illegal, don’t try it- she followed. Despite this, the newspark still transformed and landed, and if this was like a movie, there was likely a upwards pan of the two bots posing.

 

Where the heck did I did that idea? This isn’t a movie.

 

I took out my standardized gun, hating the fact that I’m wasn’t allowed my own stingers, “Look alive Str- Cadet Strongarm.” I really need to start getting this whole ‘Title-Bot Name’ thing down pact…Too many write-ups.

 

I started to lightly run forward, “Whatever it is we are doing, I am honoured.” Oh great, here goes the whole ‘You were on Optimus Prime team, OMG such a big fan, notice me senpai!’ speal that almost everyone does the second they meet me. “After all, you were there, right alongside,” here comes the fangirl, “Optimus Prime.” Yep, there it slagging is.

 

Oh I’m was going to regret this, “And…” Why did you prompt her! Stupid, stupid yellow bug.

 

“It's just,” And here's the ‘Oh, you are a war hero, and you are the equivalent to Paul Blart Mall Cop, why are you not better’ speech that always happens after I say my career, “after all you and Optimus did for Cybertron, I’m surprised you weren’t made something, more… prestigious than a street cop.” Boom goes the dynamite, maybe I should start being a fortune teller.

 

I heaved a massive sigh and looked back around the corner. Racing in circles around the legs of the statues of the Primes that we had just managed to re-fragging-build was somebot trying to be an edgy-edgelord or a childish nobody trying to rack up some more Juvie time. “There they are.” I transformed.

 

“Sir-”

 

“Go to the bridge and stay there, I’ll catch them,” I interjected, reving my engine.

 

“But sir, you will need help-” Strongarm tried again.

 

“Nah, it’ll be as easy as pie, now do as I say.” Oh man, I haven’t raced in years! Oh, wait, not racing, oops, sorry gotta go! Come back you red-plated rust bucket! I could just barely hear Strongarm wondering what ‘pie’ was as I raced to the glitched minibot in a chassis of a toaster making such a fuss-- Primus its Sideswipe again.

 

“Sideswipe!” I raced next to the more ‘modern’ sports car and kept pace, “Pull over!”

 

“Not in your fragging life! Eat my exhaus-- WOAH!” Sideswipe tried speeding up, but at the same time I overtook him and turned right in his path, making him crash into my plating, giving it a few dings, but overall not harming it much. With that graceful ark of flipping over a couple times from the momentum, Sideswipe transformed mid-air, hitting the leg of one of the statues and fell flat on his face.

 

The newspark raced over there and slapped a cuff on Sideswipe and then herself to keep him from running off as I walked over there. “You are under arrest!” She proclaimed Sideswipe started sputtering.

 

“Strongarm, it's just Sideswipe.” I grabbed the cuff and disengaged it. Strongarm looked as if I killed her puppy or something and began to sputter codes of regulation, and I will most likely be getting a write up about this too. Why can’t they just fire me already?

 

“‘Just Sideswipe’, ‘just’! Oh come on ‘Bee! That hurts!” Sideswipe slapped a servo over his dented chassis right above his spark. He still had that massive grin slag-eating grin of his on his face, “Right here.”

 

“Sir, that is a criminal and under section forty-six ‘A’, you cannot..”

 

“Cadet Strongarm, meet Autobot Frontliner Sideswipe.” I guestered to the blue femme, then the red mech, “Sideswipe, Strongarm.” And back again. Sideswipe continued to smirk at the Femme and waggled his eyebrows in what he thought was a seductive manner. It wasn’t. Strongarm was back in her ‘Fangirl’ mode and looking at Sideswipe with a mixture of awe and disgruntlement. I moved my attention back to Sideswipe, “What the frag do you think you were doing?”

 

Sideswipe looked at me with false surprise, “Me? Oh, nothing much, racing around and whatnot. The market is kinda low at the moment and I needed to get away from Sunshine for a little.” He leaned into my audio and stage whispered, “Someone scratched his paint job.”

 

“And you decided to do it here?” I crossed my arms and looked at him like he was stupid, which I know he wasn’t.

 

He shrugged, “No place else to do it. There ain’t a free space in this wash-out of a city.” The newspark sputtered, appalled by his statement, as if New Iacon wasn’t the same section copied and pasted a few times until it resembled a city. Strongarm opened her mouth to begin scolding the frontliner on his choice of words that could get him arrested, when a large cracking sound was heard above us. Collectively, in silence, we all looked up at the Optimus Prime statue - Boss bot would’ve hated it - to see its leg begin to crumble and the whole statue tilt towards us.

 

All of a sudden a massive pain in my processor made itself known and I clenched my denta and grabbed my helm in a very human like gesture. Sideswipe and Strongarm had moved quickly out of the way of the incoming pile of shaped stone, and were far away from it when it hit the ground. Myself on the other hand… I just barely made it out of the way.

 

“Lieutenant!” Strongarm cried.

 

“Bee! Wait, did you just say ‘lieutenant’?” Sideswipe questioned Strongarm beside him after yelling.

 

As sudden as the pain appeared, it disappeared just as quickly, leaving only a dull thud. I pushed some debris off, “I’m fine!” I yelled back, before whispering to myself, “I’m good, I’m good.” Holy cow slag, that would’ve killed me.

 

“When the frag did you become a Lieutenant, scout!” Sideswipe jumped on over the fallen legs of the toppled statue, his faceplate full of surprise and a big grin on his face.

 

Strongarm’s optics looked like they were about to pop right out of her helm,“You-you can’t do that! Thats breaking the law! I thought you were a veteran!”

 

“It's a figurehead, I’m lower than a grunt really.” I dusted by plating off, feeling it crawl, and urging me to go some random direction.

 

Sideswipe grinned wider, if that was even possible, “Still a Lieut’. Higher than I ever got on the pecking order. Congrats Bee.” He clapped me on the shoulder, as Strongarm was just beginning to come towards us by going around the feet of the fallen statue.

 

“Street cop.” I reminded him.

 

“Still a Lieut’.”

 

“Uh, sirs, what do we do?” Strongarm asked, gesturing to the destruction. “Under the protocall section four-seven-nine, paragraph 5, this is major property damage, and one of the punishments for this is vorns in jail,” Sideswipe and I stared at Strongarm with horror, but she still continued, “and considering that this is the Optimus Prime statue, part of the memorial recently built and costed lots a credits, we might not get it out of jail, and maybe even have to spend time in solitary.”

 

Sideswipe grabbed my shoulders and stared me right in my optics, horror filled meeting horror filled, “I’m not going back to a cell!”

 

“I’m sure that if we explain-” Strongarm began, only to be cut off my Sideswipe yelling again.

 

“You have a plan Bee?!”

 

“-If we just explain-”

 

“Space bridge! Right over there!” Sideswipe suggested in a rush, “Let's just go and get out of here because there is no way that I’m ever going to spend another klick in a cell with no hope of ever getting out of it. Bee, grab the Prowl-Magnus spawn and let's get the frag outta here.” Despite telling me to grab Strongarm, Sideswipe swiped the cuffs from my subspace and slapped it on Strongarm then himself, in a mockery of his arrest minut- _Klicks_ \- prior.

 

“Sideswipe!”

 

“Sir!” Strongarm yelped as Sideswipe began pulling us towards the Space bridge housing unit.

 

“You’re a criminal now, sweet spark! If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me!” Sideswipe proclaimed, jumping the railing onto the freeway. Sideswipe let go of my servo and then picked up Strongarm despite her protests.

 

“Sideswipe! You are panicking!” I swore as I dodged another car before following the red mech towards the history museum. “And space bridge! There aren’t any anymore!”

 

“Trust me!” The automatic door slid open too slowly for Sideswipe as before It had fully opened he was already squeezing his frame through. “I’ve broken into this place before!”

 

“Sir, that illegal--”

 

“Welcome to the Cybertronian Space Museum, would you like a map?” The drone at the front desk asked without looking up.

 

“No, thank you!” Sideswipe burst out, running through the halls, Strongarm being pulled along and myself following as Sideswipe began turning random corners in what seemed to be an attempt at getting lost. Before long, he stopped and placed a servo on a keypad, which opened. Once again, in such a rush he couldn’t wait two seconds for the door to open, he forced his frame through a too small opening and began running again.

 

He stopped at the space bridge, which wasn’t dismantled like I thought it was.

 

“Okay, space bridge, get it up and running mechs, we don’t have all orn!” Sideswipe proclaimed and started to work on the side.

 

I walked over to the console, and gasped, “Are these, Earth coordinates?”

 

“Earth, smirth, shut up! Security systems aren’t easy to break!” Sideswipe barked.

 

“This violates both protocall section one-one-six, paragraph four, AND, protocall section two-six-nine, paragraph eighteen!” Strongarm complained, before Sideswipe and her started to argue.

 

“Bumblebee.” A voice that I thought was long dead ran through my processor. I looked up from the console and looked around before looking back down, “I knew you would understand.” Ignore the voice, ignore the voice. It's just Boss Bot being dead. Ignore the reflection of Optimus behind your shoulder in the console, just ignore- “-A new mission-” Ignore the voice in your helm, you aren’t crazy. You do _not_ need to see Rung-

 

“Got it!” Sideswipe declared, raising his servos in the arm, forcing Strongarm’s to go with his. Sideswipe’s voice snapped me out of my manta and I looked at him, before going back to the console, relieved that the reflection of a dead mech was gone and I punched in the coordinates of Jasper, Nevada.

 

The space bridge opened up and a security mecha poked his helm in. “Hey! You aren’t supposed to be back here.” Sideswipe grabbed my servo and ran to the green vortex. I pulled out my gun and and aimed.

 

Wait…

 

Wait…

 

Now!

 

I fired moments before we transferred completely over to Earth, destroying the console with a high powered blast and the space bridge closed, trapping us on Earth completely.

 

“Earth!” Strongarm gasped and I looked around at the lush green scenery. This is not Nevada...damn it. Both Sideswipe and Strongarm looked around at the trees in awe as they surveyed the only organic planet with life they ever been to.

 

“I can’t believe I’m really here, sir!” I stared at Strongarm going back into fangirl mode before sighing.

 

“Stuck on Earth with a preteen and a mech that mentally a toddler. Being led by a teenager.” I murmured, “This is the start of a bad joke…”

 

I straightened up, “Alright team, ground rules-”

 

Sideswipe turned around and poked my chest plates, “Who made you leader, huh?”

 

I stared at him, “Lieutenant.” I deadpanned, gesturing to myself, before moving my servo to gesture at the red mech, “Private,” I then gestured to Strongarm, “Cadet.” I repeated the motion, “Lieutenant, Private, Cadet.” Sideswipe pouted at me. I crossed my arms “And, unlike you two, I’ve been on this planet before.”

 

Sideswipe slumped his shoulders, “Fine- whatever you say Bee.”

 

“Okay, ground rules, one: the dominating species on this planet-” I began.

 

“Oh, Humans!”

 

I glared at Strongarm, “-the humans, the majority of the species do not know about us. That said, the minute-”

 

Sideswipe raised his servo not connected to Strongarm, “What’s a minute?”

 

I glared at him, “The _klick_ I get the chance to, I’m going to be contacting a couple of humans that know about us-”

 

“We are going to be meeting humans!?” Strongarm gushed.

 

“Yes, as I was saying-”

 

“How tall are they? Are they cool? I heard they were squishy, are they squishy? How delicate are they? What types of armour do they have?” Strongarm asked, going back deeper into her fangirl mode. I glowered at her until she shut up, then sighed and pinched my nasal ridge, or the area where I would’ve pinched if I had one.

 

“Yes, you are going to be meeting humans, and I’m going to contact them so we could possible get a base for ourselves. Second rule, we need to scan new alt modes, well, at least you two do.”

 

“New alts, but I like my alt.” Sideswipe frowned, rubbing his dented chest, “It's nice and flashy.”

 

“Sir, why don’t you need to scan and alt mode?” Strongarm asked.

 

“I haven’t deleted my old mode, so I’m going to be using that and hope that the dancing space monkey will strike once again.” I laughed a little to myself as I felt my armour shift to suit my old Urbana 500, complete with the black stripes. I felt the incredulous stares from the other two. Right, they haven’t seen the stripes.

 

I looked at them, before grabbing the gun on my hip and shooting the cuffs into deactivation. Both bots jumped away from each other, with Sideswipe cursing.

 

“Earth has some flashy alts, like Lamborghinis and Ferraris, even Urbanas.” I pointed out and started to walk into the forest, waving them on to follow. “You could go the easy way and download your specs from the internet, do not recommend because it's the internet, or you can wait and scan a real car. I think I saw a scrapyard over here somewhere…”

 

“A scrapyard, I ain’t taking no piece of scrap-” Sideswipe sounded offended.

 

“That's where I got mine, and you just need the shell, if the insides are missing who cares.” I shrugged. I looked over my shoulder at him and grinned, “I mean, we can always go back to cybertron-”

 

Sideswipe gulped and walked faster, overtaking me, “Nope, nope, I like it here. Did I ever mention how much I love scrap yards? No, well, me and Sunny would always visit scrap yards as much as we could and-” Sideswipe continued his prattle as he walked forward, feet stepping high.

 

“Ah, sir” Strongarm asked beside me, I looked at her, “How are we getting back to Cybertron?”

 

I looked out of the corner of my optic, “I do not know.” I said that with all the confidence of someone whose been to jail and served my nickel.

 

“Oh.” Strongarm looked down, before looking back up, “Sir, what happens when we get back to Cybertron?”

 

“We beg and plead for mercy.” I said this before I even thought about it. I amend my statement, “I mean, we did just topple over a million credit statue, then obstruct traffic, then used a space bridge in a museum, then shot the console so they couldn’t follow us, so I mean, yeah. Beg and plead for mercy like its Megatron and we are all Starscreams.” I am horrible at amending my statements. Strongarm didn’t get my reference. She wouldn’t, but I heard Sideswipe snort ahead of us.

 

There was sweet, sweet silence for a while, as Sideswipe had trailed off and the only sound was our pedsteps over the litter on the ground. It wasn’t long until we heard someone talking.

 

“...this is Fix-it, caretaker mini-con for the Cybertron Max Security ship, Alchemor.” We were right behind the little orange bot during the time he was talking, “Still on doo-doo.”

 

“Doo-doo?” Strongarm asked and the mini-con rolled around.

 

“Duty! Madam.” A bright smile went across his face and he rolled towards us. Sideswipe took an uneasy step back. “It's so good to see Cybertronian grills after all these years! Where's your squadron?” A wide toothed smile was on his face as he stared expectantly at us.

 

“I’m afraid we’re it.” I told him, “We didn’t know you’d be here,” Why the frag would there be a mini-con on Earth? “I’m Bumblebee, this is Sideswipe and Strongarm.” I gestured to each bot as I spoke. Sideswipe was still giving the small orange bot a wary look and seemed ready to bolt at any second.

 

“ _Cadet_ Strongarm.” The femme interjected, giving me a side-optic before returning her attention to the mini-con. Good, getting some power in that processor.

 

“I’m Fix-it, sir, and this is, well was, the prison ship Alchemor, bearing Cybertron’s most wanted decepticons. Now I’ve recombed the crash site, an we are missing most of our statis cells,” Fix-it began explaining. Missing the cells...oh primus, this is not going to be good. Wait, what if- “several nearby have ruptured, and their inmates are presumably at large.” Excellent. Wait, no, bad Bee, decepticons are a bad thing. But for your plan...this is a good thing.

 

Strongarm unconsciously bent her backstruck lower to question Fix-it, “How many is ‘several’?” Good question. Obviously she isn’t a fangirl like I thought she was. Or, she still is, but a smart fangirl. I could see her working well with Prowl. If she could get over the whole ‘war veteran’ title. Eh, leave that to Sideswipe.

 

“Oh,” Fixit turned around to look at the crash site, “couple of hundred,” The frag? A couple of hundred! I thought he was going to say maybe twenty or thirty, not a hundred! Sideswipe made an aborted move backwards when Fixit moved towards the lone pod, “In fact, this one is the only one inpodometer, inconpiter,” He smacked himself on the chest, “intact.” As if bewitched by proving Fix-it wrong, the pod began to wobble. Fix-it quickly moved towards us and nonchalantly said, “It's cryostasis mechanism may be a wee-bit damaged too.” Sideswipe seemed torn between staring at the moving stasis pod and Fix-it as Sideswipe reached a servo up to his back to hover over a hilt where a sword had disconnected from its holster.

 

What is his problem with mini-cons?

 

A loud beeping sound came from behind me, “Fix-it.” Fix-it moved between Strongarm and I, and Sideswipe gave his almost full attention to the rocking pod. The orange bot moved to a blinking orange light on what seemed to be the remains of a console.

 

“Right, uh, tracking system just rebooted sir.” Why is he telling me these things? And ‘sir’? “I can’t get a lock on the prisoner’s tracking chips, but I am getting a cybertronian life signal, odds are it's a fruitigive,” He glitched for a second, “Fugitive.”

 

I sighed, just how I liked my vacations, “You’re probably right. Strongarm, stay here and help repair the ship. Sideswipe, with me.”

 

Strongarm gave a perfectly practiced military salute, “Yes sir!” Sideswipe seemed to snap out of a trance of staring at the pod, before looking at me, then at Fix-it as if judging the likelihood of the mini-con turning into a scraplet before holstering his sword and giving the mini-con a wide berth.

 

He’s been oddly silent as of late.

 

“You’re leaving?’ Fix-it asked, “But I don’t know your favorite colours, and you don’t kno...its RED!” Fix-it got out of audio range.

 

I waited until we passed the tree line, “What was that with Fix-it?” I asked, turning my helm slightly towards him.

 

Sideswipe bared his denta and refused to look at me, “Its nothing,” he growled, “just don’t like ‘em, that's all.”

 

Sideswipe refused to reiterate, and I didn’t mention it again. I suspected his bad and unfriendly attitude had to due to his experiences in the Pits and his separation from Sunstreaker.

 

There was a scream in the near distance. We paused before beginning to run in the direction of the scream. We reached a little canyon where a kid was cornered by what seemed to be a english bulldog with a bad underbite. The kid seemed to be in denial while the purple decepticon gorged himself on husks of old vans.

 

“You protect the kid, I get the ‘con” I snapped my battle mask on.

 

“Got it.” Sideswipe responded. We both jumped.

 

Sideswipe landed in between the kid and the ‘con, while I aimed for the back. I unmagnetised the standard blaster off of my hip and pointed it at a seam. I landed on the ‘con’s back, and it immediately tried to throw me off, claiming something about his reputation or something and how I should care.

 

Like riding one of those bulls in those rodeos that Cliffjumper always liked to watch, I tried to stay on while I shoved the end of my blaster in one of the seams between the armour. I had it charging ever since I unmagnetized it and fired a high-powered round into the decepticon’s main back struct.

 

It froze and began to seizure for a couple of seconds before they shook off the charge. They realised I was still on their back and gave an mighty shove, sending me flying. Right, the standard blasters are no more than electric prods…

 

I landed on my feet, before losing my balance and flipping over backwards a few times to land heavily in front of Sideswipe. Need to practise my acrobatics more.. I’ve gotten rusty.

The con escaped into the forest, knocking down trees and leaving a clear path.

 

“You okay Bug?” Sideswipe asked above me.

 

“Never better.” I groaned and lifted myself up. I looked at the terrified kid trapped between a wall and Sideswipe. The kid, who couldn’t be older than Raf was when we first met, stared directly at my optics. “Hey, kid, sorry about rushing, but did the ‘con say who he was?”

 

The boy nodded, “He said his name was Underbite and something about Nyon and Thundercruncher and Boltsmasher and how I didn’t know-”

 

“Okay, thanks man.” Not good. I turned to Sideswipe, “Mind looking after him and following?”

 

Sideswipe looked kinda grossed out, but nodded and transformed. He popped open a door, “No time like now, get in.”

 

The boy backed away, “I don’t-”

 

I knelt to the boy’s level, “Look, I get that it's completely surreal, but imagine, in fifty years do you want to look back in your life and say that you had the guts to get into the car?” I pointed to Sideswipe’s open door. “I’ll explain everything later kid.”

 

“Russell. My name’s Russell.” Russell said and clambered into Sideswipe’s unfriendly non-human loving interior.

 

I nodded and looked at the direction Underbite was going, “Looks like he’s going towards Alchemor.” I transformed and shot off, Sideswipe following me as we chased the bull-dog like decepticon’s freshly cleared path.

 

I sent a short broadcast to Strongarm, before remembering that she would have no idea what the ping was for, and then I remembered that we don’t have each other’s comms. Hopefully she’s aware and ready to fight.

 

I suddenly swerved to the right and went forward, abandoning the trail.

 

“Bug! What the frag!” Sideswipe yelled over the comm channel, and I could hear the slight yelp that Russell gave.

 

“First, language, children are present. Second, we are going to beat the ‘con to the ship.” I told him, and felt my spark become lighter at the sound of awe the human in Sideswipe’s interior gave. “Looks like Underbite’s trying to flank, so we’re going to be ready.” I pushed my engine to the max and flew over the fallen debris of the forest, using fallen trees as ramps. Unlike SIdeswipe who was falling behind because his currently alt.mode couldn’t handle the fast changing ground and because of that he had to go around each fallen tree.

 

We reached the Alchemor  and I transformed into a sliding stop, where Sideswipe gave a complete stop, let Russell out and lightly pushed him underneath a small enclave of ruined ship metal. Strongarm and Fix-it looked at us. I pulled out my blaster while Sideswipe had released his sword and was ready to party.

 

“Incoming!” I yelled and leapt over to the other side of the wreck. Underbite had just made his appearance crashing through the trees and was met with light electrical twinges of laser fire. Strongarm readied her own blaster in a perfect officer’s stance. She began to fire, only to be knocked over as Underbite got annoyed. Sideswipe jumped in a slashed, diverting the ‘con’s attention before pushing his sword through a gap.

 

Underbite roared and swung at Sideswipe, throwing him almost into Strongarm.

 

“Watch it!” She yelled at him.

 

“You watch it!”

 

“Shut up and flank!” I yelled at them both, before we all got knocked down on our afts. I couldn’t tell where Fix-it or Russell were at that moment, and my gyros had to reset. Which was taking way too damn long and that also needs practising.

 

I could vaguely tell that the decepticon in the stasis cell had his helm poking out and was taunting the other decepticon, but that was the least of my worries at the moment. Like the fact that Underbite had just seen something and was going to it.

 

“One of the escaped prisoners?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.

 

“Yes, a chompaziod named Underbite.” Fix-it confirmed, “The more metal a chompaziod consumes, the stronger they get.”

 

Sideswipe looked, “So its not good that he’s headed to a metal graveyard then, is it?”

 

“Wait, did you mean the scrapyard?” Russell asked, sounding worried, “My dad’s in there!” Oh scrap.

 

Fix-it looked confused, “What’s a dad?”

 

“Usually a older male of the domantant species of this planet that is genetic donator that assists in the rearing of one or multiple offspring or progeny.” I explained, trying very hard not to roll my optics.

 

“Oh.” Fix-it looked at Russell, “Why didn’t you just say that.”

 

Russell stared at Fix-it in something that looked like confused horror before running and screaming dad. I gently stepped forward and picked him up before he got too far. “Look, you aren’t going anywhere near that chompazoid.” I told him, “It's too dangerous for you.” Still, he struggled in my light grip.

 

“You know what else it's too dangerous for it?” Sideswipe asked rhetorically, “Him.” We looked over at a green and black decepticon stomping his way on top of the crashed ship. He glared at us before transforming into-

 

My face dropped from guarded awe to a unimpressed stare. A dinobot. A fragging dinobot. Didn’t I hear something about Wheeljack being banned from doing Science after doing something with five of these things-

 

He stomped his way over towards us and stared threateningly. “Know anyone named Wheeljack?” I asked before I could stop myself. The dinobot looked at me quicker than lightning. “I’m going to take that as a ‘yes’.”

 

“He didn’t say anything!” Sideswipe complained.

 

“Who’s Wheeljack?” Strongarm questioned.

 

I wish I could glare at them. “Do you like Wheeljack?” The Dinobot stared harder before giving a quick nod. “Cool. You defeat the chompazoid, no more stasis pod.” I could feel Fix-it and Strongarm about to sprout regulations. The dinobot continued to glare, I placed my servo over my chest and held out my hand, “Scouts honor.”

 

“Better be true.” He growled before stomping off in the direction of Underbite.

 

I turned to the rest. “Fix-it, Russell, stay here. You’ll get underfoot-ped. Underped.” I turned my gaze to Russell who looked ready to bolt any second. “I don’t want to need to worry about more than one human’s location while fighting.” I looked back at Sideswipe and Strongarm, “You two, we’re doing some aft kicking.” I used my thumb to point over my shoulder at the scrapyard.

 

Sideswipe whooped, jumped in the air and transformed before shooting off. I sighed and transformed too before bolting after him, and was aware of Strongarm doing the same. I hope to Primus that Russell doesn’t pull a Miko and follow. That would just be great.

 

We got there in time to see Underbite throw the dinobot just behind the man who was Russell’s dad and I crouched behind a fence. I gestured to the other two to flank and wait. One of them knew, the other didn’t so a servo was grabbed and yanked.

 

“Just wait for an opening Bee.” I murmured to myself, watching the fight and promising myself that I was going to re-engage my stingers after this. I watched them in unsurprised mirth as Russell did indeed pull a Miko and a Skywarp at the same time because there was no way that Russell could run that fast.

 

I stood up to see Strongarm bouncing in front of me, “I’ll get the human clear and then we can take down the fugitive sir!” She then proceeded to follow the human, who was then followed by Sideswipe in alt.mode.

 

I stared after them, “Scrap.”

 

The dinobot was tossed and landed rolling right behind the three and I couldn’t see if Russell was okay, or if any of them were and oh wait there STrongarm about to-

 

“Let's do this!” She cried and fired.

 

“Strongarm no!” I ran and then pushed her out of the way. “Go, go go!” Angry Chompazoid is not a good thing. We ran from the Chompaziod towards Sideswipe who seemed to get Russell safely to his dad.

 

I watched as the Dinobot engaged Underbite once again. “This is a disaster.” I said to myself as we watched the Dinobot punch the purple decepticon over and over. I turned to them, “Why didn’t you flank like I said?”

 

Strongarm looked offended, “I am trained to serve and protect, not flank and watch!” This is not the time for her to be growing a backstrut.

 

I looked at Sideswipe, who shrugged with a grin, “Since when do I ever listen to orders?” I stared at him before relenting. He did have a point.

 

I moved to the door, “Russell, uh-”

 

The dad pointed at himself, “Denny.”

 

“Denny, where's the safest place around here?”

 

Denny thought about it, “Theres, theres some caves down by the river.”

 

“Take yourselves there.” I told them and moved to the insubordinate duo, “Strongarm, you too.”

 

“Sir, I want to help.” Strongarm voiced, “Teach me, like Optimus taught you.”

 

If she thought that _that_ was going to get me she was wrong. I glared at her, “I’m not Optimus.” I growled.

 

Sideswipe planted a servo on a hip and cocked it, “Too bad, we could really use him right about now.”

 

I elected to ignore that comment as I watched the green mech become a barbell. The purple mech threw the dinobot in our direction. “Brace yourselves.” I ordered before darting out of the way.

 

As we were collecting our bearings, Underbite managed to eat more metal and move a car from the middle of a stack of junk without toppling it. He then awed, which likely meant he found something even better than a scrapyard full of metal.

 

Likely a city.

 

He spoke to himself and before transforming and rolling out.

 

As we regrouped, I asked if everyone was okay. “Everyone’s fine Lieutenant, except maybe the fugitive.” Her voice turned sour. I looked at the green mech. Once again, choosing to decide to make the femme very wrong, he jumped up.

 

“Time for round two!” He declared, before looking around, “Huh? What happened?”

 

“Underbite tossed you like a lob ball.” The blue and white femme said acridly.

 

“Anyone get hurt?” The dinobot asked.

 

“Nope.”

 

The green mech scratched his helm with surprise, “That's a first.”

 

“It's strange that Underbite took off.” Sideswipe commented harshly. “There's still plenty of metal here.”

 

“He’s headed for that city.” I pointed, “Those skyscrapers are made almost entirely out of metal.”

 

“We should call the cops!” Russell suggested hurryingly, “The army!”

 

“No,” I told him gently, “No more humans can become involved.”

 

“What about those humans you were going to comm.?” Sideswipe asked.

 

I pointed at him, “They are already involved.”

 

“But those skyscrapers,” Denny reminded, “There are thousands of humans in there.”

 

“Then we’ll stop him before he ever gets there.”

 

Strongarm stepped forward, “Just let me transform sir and I’ll come with.”

 

“No,” I help up a servo to try and placate her, “Strongarm, you need to understand, you aren’t combat ready.” Strongarm scowled at me.

 

The green decepticon transformed, “Well I want another shot at that muscle head.” He punched his servos together.

 

Strongarm pantomimed at the decepticon, “You can’t let some criminal ride with you!”

 

Sideswipe raised a pointed servo, “Uh, newspark, we are criminals.”

 

Strongarm spun around, “No thanks to you!” Sideswipe was unaffected by her outrage and went back to looking over his finish.

 

“I’m not a criminal!” Dinobot complained, “At least, I don’t think I am.”

 

“I bet that's what they all say.” Sideswipe smirked at Strongarm who was torn between being mad at Sideswipe, or happy that a War Vet’ was paying her attention.

 

“Alright-”

 

“I’m going and if you don’t like it, you can try and stop me.” The large mech crossed his arms in front of my face.

 

I stared impassively back up at him, “I said alright.”

 

Denny ran to his shed, “I’m going too! I know a shortcut to the bridge!”

 

“Lieutenant, if you’re taking those two-”

 

“Fine!” I relented, “But no cybertronian forms! There could be boats on that river, and humans on the shore. We need to blend in.”

 

Sideswipe grinned, “We need to be robots in disguise?”

 

I looked at him, “...yes.”

 

I turned to Denny, “Do you store any other cars here? Even just frames?” Denny nodded and showed us to the car park. There were rows upon rows of frames.

 

I glanced at Sideswipe and Strongarm, “Find one. Hurry.” Strongarm raced into the rows, followed quickly by Sideswipe who refused to turn down any challenge, even if that challenge was finding an alt.mode first.

 

“Um, Bee?” A human voice asked and I looked down at Russell, he seemed glad that he got my name right, “Why aren’t you getting a new form?”

 

I slapped by chassis, “Urbana 500 here.”

 

Russell perked up, “Wait, were you that driverless car!?” I pulled back a bit in embarrassment, it seems that the dancing space monkey has not yet completed its entire duty of making me obsolete. I didn’t answer that question, but the silence seemed enough for Russell, who looked at me in awe. I waited for Sideswipe to finish gloating over his win, not that there was a competition, in finding the best alt.mode the fastest, despite the fact that Strongarm is a truck.

 

I clapped my servos together like I was herding schoolchildren, “Alright! I’m going to comm. Fix-it and let him know where we are going.” Strongarm looked over in my direction and wanted to acknowledge me, but Sideswipe’s gloating was enough for her to forget that as she proceeded to criticize him about acting his age.

 

“Bumblebee to Fix-It, come in.”

 

“Right here sir,” That seemed like it wasn’t coming from the comm. I looked down to see Fix-it towing a cart around with what looks like five sticks.

 

“Fix-it? What are you doing?”

 

Fix-it looked at me, “Answering...your...call?” He grinned to himself, “And I’m suppose to be the one with the faulty wiring.”

 

“No, I mean, eh, what, er… Nevermind.” I wasn’t opening that can of worms, “Any progress with the stasis cells back at the crash site?” Fix-it proudly told me he repaired one cell. I gawked at him, “You didn’t need to come here to tell me that.”  

 

“Oh, well, then I’ll just go back to the ship and take these capture devices with me.” Fix-it began pulling his cart back.

 

“Wait, capture devices?” I asked, knowing that there was likely going to be a scientific speal about every single component in those things.

 

Fix-it revitalised himself, turned around and gave me a Sideswipe-like smirk. He threw one of the strange sticks at me. With skill, I grabbed it out of its rotation. I managed to keep myself from showing off. Barely. “Just point or throw.” He tossed another one to Strongarm.

 

“Alright! Fix-it, back to the ship and get that cell ready. Russell, Stay here. Everyone else, we’re a team, and we are all that stands between Underbite and a lot of innocent lives. So let's do what we have to do.” I felt as if there was suppose to be a catchphrase here, so, “Autobots, Roll out!”

 

“I’m not an autobot.” The green mech pointed out.

 

I pointed at him, “Honorary!”

 

Sideswipe raised his servo, “You’re plagiarizing.”

 

I moved my servo at him, “Thats rich coming from you.” Sideswipe looked confused at that statement. I simply elected to transform and moved out. Everyone else following. Surprisingly, we got to the bridge before Underbite and there was any lack of action on the way there.

 

It could be because Underbite was dragging his peds as he neared the bridge. He didn’t bother to notice me until we were steps from each other. “Sorry Underbite.” Ah, now I have your attention. “This bridge is closed.”

 

He glared at me, but that only allowed the Dinobot, I still need to get his name, to smash into him and run him over. Strongarm and I used the capture devices to immobilise him, but that didn’t seem to work. Long story short, we got our afts kicked and we all moved to keep Underbite from moving any closer to the bridge.

 

“Ready for your back-up plan sir!” Strongarm proclaimed.

 

“I don’t have one- wheres Sideswipe?”

 

“Yoo-hoo!” Sideswipe’s voice yelled out, and we was pulling a cart full of those odd-looking cartoon squirrels. He slid to a stop in front of Underbite. “Come and get it!” Sideswipe put petal to the metal and gunned it out of there.

 

Underbite followed the easily recognizable bait.

 

“Sideswipe, you glorious toaster.” I shook my healm as his lamborghini-like alt.mode was used to traverse rocky terrain. I transformed and followed them. After a short chase, I could see a cliff, and a certain chompazoid standing right at the edge. Gunning my engine to the max, I jumped over Sideswipe (DID HE BRING FRAGGING RUSSELL!?) and used my momentum to try and push him over.

 

Strongarm and the green honorary autobot followed, with Denny in the pick up doing the same thing? Oh scrap.

 

Anyways, even with Sideswipe, sans Russell thank Primus,  helping, we couldn’t push the dog-like decepticon over the edge, and since the glorious toaster forgot he had metal on him, Underbite gained enough strength to throw us al off and grab Denny’s truck. Underbite, like all decepticons, began to gloat as he started to crush the pick-up truck.

 

“No!” I started to run to try and stop the purple con before I gasped and stopped. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I also still couldn’t believe what I was seeing as the new comer then decided to throw Underbite down into the quarry.

 

“Boss bot?” I looked at him, at the mech who was suppose to be dead. “You, are alive?” I looked behind me at Strongarm and Sideswipe, who both had a look of awe on their faces. Ok, so not a psychotic breakdown.

 

“That is unclear.” I turned back around to stare at Optimus. How the frag is being alive unclear or not!? “But I do know that I cannot maintain my presence on Earth for much longer. You have found an excellent team.” The frag?

 

“We, uh, yeah, I found a excellent team.”

 

“Together you will face many challenges, the forces facing Earth are immense and formidable, But I am certain you will accomplish great things. As you did today.” He’s smiling, he’s smiling, oh my Primus, what is going on? “You are ready to lead, Bumblebee, do not doubt yourself.”

 

“Will I see you again?” I had to, I just had to ask, why did I have to ask?

 

“I am not certain, the universe has a plan for me, and I do not know what it is.” Optimus looked at me, “You will prevail, Bumblebee, you must.” And like faith, trust and pixie dust, the prime disappeared into literally nothing.

 

We stood there for a few seconds.

 

“Did anyone else see that?” I asked my ‘team’.

 

“Yep.” Sideswipe answered.

 

“Cool.” I nodded continuously for a second as I processed what I just saw. “Mass hallucination?”

 

“Agreed.” Sideswipe clapped his servos together, “Okay everyone, nothing to see here, nothing at all! Now let's go get the ‘con and put him in the stasis pod!”

 

Strongarm sputtered, “We just saw Optimus Prime!”

 

I put my servos on her shoulder, “We did not. It was a mass hallucination brought on by water vapours being reflected by our plating.” Strongarm looked hurt as I started to help Sideswipe and the dinobot. “Now, I suggest that before we go back to Cybertron, we collect as many decepticons to use as bribes so we don’t go into jail. Anyone agree?”

 

“I like that plan.” The green mech nodded, and Sideswipe just shrugged with a grin.

 

“Good.” I turned to the green mech. “Anyways, I didn’t catch your designation.”

 

“Oh, it's Grimlock.” Grimlock. That seems famili- GRIMLOCK!

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is two episodes, twenty pages. I was hoping to do an episode a chapter, but I see that's not going to happen...
> 
> Also I'm torturing myself by watching the episodes, you are very welcome.
> 
> this is unbeta'd at the moment.


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